Eye-on-Retail Daily Tipsheet Archives

Nordstrom slashes at least 100 jobs in latest round of cuts by Madeline Vuong at GeekWire. “The retailer “has been taking a closer look at our technology team to ensure it is best structured to provide a competitive advantage for Nordstrom,” spokeswoman Tara Darrow said in an e-mail to GeekWire today, confirming that the company has made additional cuts.”Read more

HD Supply to expand in Cobb by J. Scott Trubey at AJC. “The company plans to add 500 workers in Cobb over the next five years as part of a new $100 million headquarters campus, according to a news release Thursday from Gov. Nathan Deal’s office.”Read more

Walmart has increased its market share with Millennials by 4.5% in the past few years by Kim Souza at The City Wire. “Steve Bratspies said the retailer continues to focus on the Millennial generation…He said 48% of them are multi-cultural, versus 28% of the boomers…“They are the most value driven generation that was seen in my lifetime, slightly ahead of Gen- X.” Read more

J.C. Penney CEO Marvin Ellison buys JCP stock, bringing total stake to 2.5 million shares by Maria Halkias at Dallas Morning News. “Ellison made the $590,000 purchase of 50,000 shares at an average price of $11.80 a share on Wednesday.”Read more

Kohl’s Stakes its Turnaround on Relaunch of Top House Brand by Phil Wahba at Fortune. “Over the years, we were looking at it as different categories within Sonoma, like women’s, men’s and home items, rather than as a true brand,” says Michael Gilbert, executive vice president of product development for Kohl’s. “We knew that Sonoma was a vehicle we needed to re-imagine.”Read more

CVS Health to spend $50M to snuff out youth tobacco use by Jessica Bartlett at Boston Business Journal. “CVS Health said it would partner with national anti-tobacco organizations like Scholastic and the American Cancer Society to educate youth on the harms of smoking.”Read more

Amazon.com back online after sudden outage hit users across the U.S. by James Risley at GeekWire.See the outage map

Vitamin Shoppe Adds Former Walgreens Boots CIO Tim Theriault to Board by Steven Norton at Wall Street Journal. “Tim Theriault…still serves as an adviser to Walgreens Boots CEO Stefano Pessina on cybersecurity and other IT issues.”Read more (subs.)

Here’s why the founder of Ikea wears hand-me-down clothes by Peter Holley at Washington Post. “This is not the first time the 89-year-old has revealed his penchant for extreme penny-pinching. In 2008, he told Swedens Sydsvenskan newspaper that he saves money by getting his hair cut during trips overseas to poorer countries.”Read more

Jet.com Wants to Slash Diaper Prices for Low-Income Families by Jason Del Rey at Recode. “To bring down the price, the two companies decided to eliminate unnecessary graphics from packaging and add more diapers than usual to a box. The diapers will be available to anyone on Jet.com in late April, but nonprofits can apply for special discounted pricing at Jet.com/jetcares right now.”Read more

Jessica Alba’s Honest laundry detergent said to contain forbidden ingredient by David Pierson at LA Times. “The Wall Street Journal conducted two lab tests that found the company’s liquid laundry detergent contained SLS, according to a story published Thursday. Honest, which has raised $222 million in private funding, disputes the Wall Street Journal’s findings and called the story “reckless.”Read more

Shopify COO Opens Up About Executive Coaches by James Cowan at Canadian Business. “Until recently, it was a weird, dirty secret that some of the best leaders in the world have coaches. So I’ve become very vocal about it, because I think it’s important. Coaching at Shopify actually started with Cody Fauser, our CTO. He was a phenomenal engineer and software creator, but it didn’t come naturally for him to manage a team. So he hired a coach for himself. Once we saw the benefit for Cody, the entire executive team started seeing coaches.”Read the full Q&A

Sobeys cutting fresh food prices in Western Canada to woo customers by Marina Strauss at Globe & Mail. “We’re not dealing with the same customer psyche that we were dealing with even a year ago,” Marc Poulin, chief executive officer of parent Empire Cos. Ltd., told analysts. “The behaviour of the customer has changed in Western Canada, and we have to acknowledge that.”Read more

Colgate extends restructuring program, will cut up to 3,800 jobs at Reuters. “The company also said it would cut costs on its supply chain and focus on expanding its commercial hubs.”Read more

Chobani Pushes Into Drinks and Savory Dips by Jennifer Kaplan & Craig Giammona at Bloomberg. “Chobani’s billionaire founder, Hamdi Ulukaya, is looking to prove the company can go it alone after rejecting an offer earlier this year from PepsiCo.”Read more